The Boy Next Door

Chapter 19

I opened my eyes to see people crowded around me. I was once again in a lumpy hospital bed, in a yellow room that looked like a kindergarten classroom. I guess this was starting to become a habit for me.

As my eyelids fluttered open, gasps arose around me. I could pick out my mom, dad, Carter, Nick, and a nurse.

I attempted to sit up, but a wave of dizziness washed over me, so I laid back down.

"Hey kiddo, how are you doin?" My dad asked bending down so he was eye level with me.

"Okay. What happened?" I asked not recalling the events.

"Well, we were at your team's game and you passed out."

"Well what's the big deal? People pass out all the time," I said trying to convince myself that it was nothing serious - but deep down I knew that it was.

The nurse stepped forward to reveal some more bad news. Yay! (note sarcasm).

"Well dearie it's going to be a lot to take in but here it goes. Remember how we were almost certain you had a concussion and we didn't think we need to run a CT scan?"

"Yeah."

"Well we missed something."

My heart skipped a beat. What?!

"In rare cases of concussions, a blood clot in the brain forms. If not treated, that blood clot can cause you to have a stroke. Since your blockage was only temporary and you weren't born with a blood disorder, you just experienced a transient ischemic attack (TIA). It is basically a 'mini stroke' from a temporary blockage. Although a TIA doesn't cause permanent brain damage, it may cause stroke warning signs, which may last minutes or even hours. In your case, you had warning signs that only lasted an hour or two."

"Wait, so you are telling me, I just had a mini-stroke because of a blood clot on my brain that was overlooked!" I said angrily. They were doctors! This was there job!

"Well we cannot know if it is there unless we do a scan and it didn't look like you needed one. It's alright though, we ran a test while you were out and we have seen that no harm has come to your brain, for instance, no trauma. However, depending on how well the surgery goes, your brain may become slightly damaged. Lucky for you, this surgery shouldn't be as major as it would have been if you were born with a blood clot."

I felt like screaming and crying all at once. At this rate, I will never play soccer again! And I better kiss that tryout goodbye. There was one tomorrow, one next Sunday, and one next Saturday.

"Okay," I croaked out trying to take in all of the information. "What will the surgery be?"

"We will need to perform a craniotomy surgery. A craniotomy is the surgical removal of part of the bone from the skull to expose the brain. Specialized tools are used to remove the section of bone called the bone flap. The bone flap is temporarily removed, then replaced after the brain surgery has been performed. Some craniotomy procedures may utilize the guidance of computers and imaging computerized tomography to reach the precise location within the brain that is to be treated. We have already performed the imaging during the CT scan we did earlier this afternoon. This technique requires the use of a frame placed onto the skull or a frameless system using superficially placed markers on the scalp. When either of these imaging procedures is used along with the craniotomy procedure, it is called stereotactic craniotomy. Once we have removed a part of your skull, we will open up the blocked artery, clean out whatever is blocking it, then stitch it up. Then, we will return the part of your skull that was removed and stitch you up. Do you have any questions?"